A Change of Recruiting Strategy: World of Raids Tool

This raid cycle is about to end soon and I know there are many guilds who are gradually bleeding members to life and other obligations outside of the game. It’s becoming a tough stretch to even field a full competent crew for ToGC 25.

Right now, even though we’re recruiting for ToGC 25, I personally don’t know if anyone’s going to bite. What I did decide to include is an extra note that says we’re also recruiting for Icecrown.

Another stipulation that I’ve added is that quality of gear players have when applying won’t really matter to us. In other words, I’ve relaxed the gear standards.

Why?

Because I know Icecrown’s just on the horizon and will debut within 4-6 weeks. I projected a late November or early December release.

That’s 4 weeks for a new applicant to get themselves geared up so that they can be effective in Icecrown. Even if they’re a fresh 80, running a constant stream of heroics or getting carried in farm or alt raids is enough to build a supply of badges to purchase tier 9 gear.

So in other words, I’m enacting a two tier strategy. The first priority is to recruit players who can help fill our raids and contribute. Failing that, if they’re not at the level they need to be, we’ll still draft them for the future.

I’ve gotten some bites on trade chat, but they’re mostly inquiries for now. Twitter has again proven fruitful as I’ve had a few interested players from there apply. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to use the official realm forums as everytime I post it says “Invalid Option”.

I was actually tempted to include in the recruiting message that the leadership had Icecrown experience as I’ve participated in all of the PTR tests so far. When you’re competing against other guilds for players, every edge helps right? One would think that foresight and knowledge into the next tier of content might tip the scales in favor.

What are you looking for?

The first thing you’ll notice is that there are a variety of search filters at the top. Use those to narrow down the guilds that fit your criteria.

1. This is where you select the Realm. Obviously, since I’m a Dwarf Priest, I am going to select Alliance. Even though I live in Canada, the closest realms to me are in the US. I prefer PvP servers just because of the extra variable element they add to my day to day affairs even though I still hate Rogues.

2. If there’s a specific realm you’re looking for, you can enter it here and it will isolate only guilds that are from there.

3. You set your class and specs here. For me, I’ll put down Holy Priest as an example.

4. If you care about progression, you’ll want to look for a guild that’s in your area. This takes a bit of trial and error as there’s no absolute guideline on this. Just for the sake of it, I said narrow it down to guilds that are in the top 2000 around the world.

5. Raid times can be narrowed here. If you prefer to raid on certain days and times, simply choose the day where it matters and then use the buttons to select the start and end times. Setting a large range works best. It will display guilds that happen to raid on the days that you choose. Note that the guilds may raid days in addition to the ones you have selected.

Make sure you set the time zone appropriately.

The search results below will show guilds that best match your criteria. A green bar on the left signals how close they match your filters. The rest of the information is shown on the bar such as classes, progression rank, and times.

And hey, look at that. There’s a guild called Conquest that happens to be recruiting. I think I might give those guys a shot. Let’s click on that page and see what happens next.

What am I looking for?

Now that you’re on my World of Raids guild page, you can see all of the necessary information listed in one area and it’s very handy to applicants and recruiters alike.

At the very top, it displays some basic information. The icon on the left signifies which faction, Horde or Alliance, the guild is. The server and battlegroup along with the guild’s website is shown beside it. On the right side, applicants can see where this guild ranks on the progression curve. The Apply button is in bright yellow box that’s difficult to miss.

As you’ll see, the top part of the page displays what classes I’m looking for. At the moment, the classes that have a color background behind them signify that I will consider those classes. All we could use right now are bodies to help us in our raids and I won’t be too picky when it comes to class. If you can reach a certain threshold of DPS output and in game “smarts”, it’s good enough for me.

Right below that, you can see a neat graphical representation of progress. It takes a while to update as the data is pulled from WoW Progress and is reflected here. Under Crusader’s Coliseum, note how there are two levels of progression. Half a bar represents the boss has been taken down on normal mode while a full bar means it’s been done on heroic.

Ulduar is below that and it also breaks down individual boss achievements into fractions. Freya, for example, is broken up into 4 parts which represent her and various amounts of elder kills.

Sadly, this isn’t up to date as we took down Heroic faction champs last week and killed Yogg with 3 keepers active.

You can also see a link to 10 man achievements in the top right corner of each raid instance.

Below that you can see notable accomplishments and a simple mouse over will display what has been achieved. I like the fact that it also highlights when a certain achievement was achieved. For example, Kil’jaden on the far right was killed prior to the release of 3.0.2.

Unfortunately, as this tracks everyone’s achievement, even if one person has Immortal, it will still display it as a guild achievement. Such was the case here because we weren’t able to get Immortal together as a guild.

Finally, the right side bar displays information that can’t easily be expressed or pulled from a third party source. This is where the administrator enters extra information about their guild. The raid times are shown at the top and is displayed in a 24 hour format to minimize confusion. The timezone that the guild operates on is also shown. These are settings that the administrator can control which ranges from MST, CST, EST, and so forth. I don’t recall what the European ones are.

The about section offers a brief description of the guild and what it’s about. It’s important to not go all out here. You want to sell your guild and garner interest, not scare them away with a giant wall of text. This is not the place to paste your guild’s core beliefs. You don’t have to enter in duplicate information. Remember, guild progression is already shown in the main area. Just tell potential applicants what you’re all about.

Some things include:

What you do? (Raid, PvP)

How you do it? (Push content within a narrow time frame)

What sets you apart from other guilds? (We hold players accountable)

Applicant expectations are where the guild administrators state what their expectations are. Again, be fairly brief here. Think of this as a brochure instead of an operations manual. This is the area where the qualities of the ideal applicant are listed.

One example would be something simple as must be mature and have thick skin so as to not take negative feedback personally.

Great I’m ready!

Once you’re ready and this looks like the perfect guild fit, it’s time for you to hit the apply button. There are 3 options that administrators can set.

Apply via World of Raids private message

Email

Website

For me, I selected the website because I like to keep all applicants in one area. Not every guild has such a luxury and you may wish to use email or PMs to handle that.

It’s certainly a well polished tool and I hope more players and guilds make use of it.

I think part of the problem with recruiting is that the jump in difficulty between ToC Heroic and ToC normal seems really large. Also, players tend to not like obvious repetition even though a lot of things in WoW is in essence, endless grind fests or rat races.

This period of the WotLK expansion would mirror the period before SWP came out in TBC. I remember alot of guilds having trouble with raider burnout/boredom or losing members from other factors.

I hope you guys manage to get past this lull in recruitment and kick ass in Ice crown!

Check that out, WoM crew – let me know which one you feel is more robust. I started promoting WoW Matcher, but if the WoR tool is better, I’ll talk that one up.
.-= Josh´s last blog ..The 3.2 Ret FAQ =-.

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About me

My name is Matticus and this is my World of Warcraft blog. Here you can read about my thoughts regarding healing as a priest. As a former guild master, I also write about guild and raid related topics. The blog has expanded to include thoughts from other regular contributors. The aim of this blog is to help you grow and improve. My unending goal is to have something relevant and useful in every post. or more, you can check out my columns on Blizzard Watch. Visit theGuildmasters to talk shop with other GMs, raid leaders, and officers. My current guild is on Kel'Thuzad US.